"Abortion Doctor" Murdered

skeptigirl said:
I'm not asking for all Christians to act. I ask again, can you show me any evidence that any Christians have taken any actions to examine and/or address the problem of people who act on misconstrued beliefs about what the Christian religion is telling the nutjobs or extremists to do?
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Asking them to take action against people who misconstrue Christian beliefs might be a fair request if there was any reasonable way you could twist your typical Christian Sunday sermon into an exhortation to kill the infidels wherever you find them abortion doctors.

Unfortunately, there are people who could discover justification for murder in the Sermon on the Mount and every episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Madness needs no reason, just an excuse. As Voltaire said, "To the wicked, everything is pretext."
 
skeptigirl said:
I merely asked for some examples of Christians' actions to prevent these 'nutjobs' from misconstruing the anti-abortion message.

I have the same concern about the Muslim community. Clearly there are many Christians and Muslims that don't agree with the actions of the extremists among them. But other than voicing disagreement, what are they actually doing to prevent the 'nutjobs' from acting on misconstrued religious messages?
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What are you expecting from them? What, exactly, do you think they ought to be doing to prevent this sort of thing from occurring? For example, what do you think the church Dr. Tiller was attending should have done to prevent "nutjobs from misconstruing the anti-abortion message".
 
skeptigirl said:
Phelps counter protests usually involve people supporting the military families Phelps is harassing or people supporting gays that Phelps targets. Do you have any examples of church groups specifically counter protesting Phelps?
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I live in Kansas near a College run by the Sisters of Charity. After the Matthew Shepard incident one of the nuns stated at an assembly "We must learn to live together."

Fred Phelps protested both the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity and Saint Mary College for that quote. There was a huge counter protest, including catholic students and Sisters. Since the Motherhouse in Leavenworth, KS is kind of a 'nursing home' for aging Sisters of Charity, I saw little 90 year old nuns with counter protest signs.

The Sisters of Charity are very liberal for being Catholic (they favor priests getting married, female priests, etc). And while they think gays are 'misguided' they will stand up for their rights. It was awesome to talk to a little 90 year old nun protesting Fred Phelps in favor of gays having rights. She didn't think Matthew Shepard was going to burn in hell.

Fred Phelps protested at ALL funerals of people he thinks are gay, until Kansas passed a law forbidding him to do so, long before Bush did. We had to deal with it long before the Matthew Shepard case, or the Iraq War.
 
sugarb said:
I have to agree. It is intimidation through violence...and if the guy shot him because he was a doctor who performed abortions, rather than just some crazy guy with a gun walking in and shooting someone randomly (which has happened--it is possible, I suppose, that this could be unrelated to abortion), it seems quite obvious to me that it is intended to send a bigger message.
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Yup. Couple that with the statements by nutbags like Randall Terry about how he (Tiller) was a "murderer" and whatnot, and it certainly seems like a broader message is being sent.

I also heard on the radio that at a vigil held in Wichita on behalf of Tiller and his family, that a few anti-abortion protestors showed up. A few held signs that said things like "God save the shooter." Nice :rolleyes:
 
SezMe said:
I agree as well. It will be very interesting to see if some recent terrorism legislation is brought to bear on this case. Or how about some aspects of the RICO statues?

I predict this is going to get much bigger than simply murder.
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Sadly, I have to agree. It seems that Obama's election and his influence on SCOTUS picks is going to drive the more extreme elements in the anti-abortion movement to dangerous levels. I view this sort of thing as part of the natural result of all the nasty rhetoric which has been flying around in the last 6-7 months regarding anything contrary to the views of the hard right-wingers. That and the general frustration that nutters like Randall Terry must be feeling, seeing as how they went the "change the laws" route for years and all they got was a lousy ban on late-term abortions that still has exceptions to it.

I think it could get much worse before it gets any better, because the extremists will start to think that changing the laws takes too long and doesn't get anywhere useful (i.e. it won't ban all abortions for whatever reason).

ETA: I think this could very well be classified as domestic terrorism, especially if it is revealed this guy was plugged into a network. It happened back in the 90s, folks. I wouldn't be surprised if it is happening again.
 
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Galileo said:
This appears to be the first staged event of the Obama administration:

1) how do the cops know it was a lone nut, if the gunman was not captured?

2) how did the gunman get away?

3) why was another "suspect" arrested 170 miles away, if the gunaman acted alone?

This event has huge political overtones. Most likely, it was staged to smear anti-abortion people.

Full Disclosure - I favor legal abortions, as long as tax dollars are not used to perform them.
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I hope you're kidding.

Otherwise, the CT-subforum is two doors down on the right :rolleyes:
 
Sorry to come into this so late. I must respond to this post. I apologies for those parts of my reply that have already been covered…

skepticalbeliever said:
If you want to see "Christians" condemn this, go to Operationrescue.org. When it returns, you will see that even the most conservative Christians abhor the abomination of shooting a person in church. You can see the same thing on the nrlc.org. Go to lifenews.com and see that all pro life groups condemn this murder.
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Lets see. Operation Rescue moved from California to Kansas to target George Tiller. They regularly called him a mass murderer, Tiller the Killer, and so on. If you do that enough, the result should not be at all surprising. If you google Operation Rescue, what you will see in their sub category links is a thing called “Tiller Watch”. It's first on their list. While they are busy fixing up their site (to remove any ambiguity) so they can show that they promoted only non-violent lawful attacks on Tiller, and they abhor murder, his blood is still on their hands. They may not have pulled the trigger, but they helped load the gun.
skepticalbeliever said:
I have posted about George Tiller extensively on this board. I saw this news go across the ticker on fox news and was stunned. That is the only word I can use to describe my reaction.
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You shouldn’t have been. Are you admitting to being naïve?
skepticalbeliever said:
What happened in Ks. today was a tragedy. We live in a world where people don't respect life, we see late term abortionists abort viable babies, and we see hypocritical vigilantes kill in the name of protecting life. This shows that we need to build a culture that respects life in order to prevent this from happening in the future.
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So you have decided that the baby’s life is of more value than the mother’s life? In order to be consistent, (abortion is bad) you would kill off the mother. Where is the logic? One life will be saved, and you have decided which life it should be. That’s what this comes down to. Other than not having to actually face making that choice, which is very convenient for you, if you actually did, it would make you as much a killer as you say that Tiller was. And you will have come to your decision the same way Tiller did. If Tiller is a hypocrite, so are you.

A culture that respects life kills the mother, when it comes down to one or the other. I see… So how exactly did you figure out how to place a value on one life over the other? Oh yeah, abortion is bad…

And by the way, I don’t know anyone who is "pro-abortion". The term is a strawman made up by those who want to frame the debate to make the other side look like they don’t value life. The term is a lie...
 
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skepticalbeliever said:
I don't think this is terrorism. It would have been terrorism if a bomb was used and more people were hurt. People have been killing eachother over things like this for ages. Assasinating a person doesn't qualify as real terrorism in my view.

I hope the prolife movement will continue to expose the crimes of the abortion industry. This is not an excuse to stop doing that at all.
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So you're pretty ok with the killing you're only worry is that it might affect your movement?
 
Donal said:
Not primarily. Tiller himself was the target to prevent his actions. An assassination is not necessarily terrorism.

Terrorism more or less targets random people to intimidate a government.

That said, I oppose abortion on moral grounds and I also think this was wrong. The shooter should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and leaders of the anti-abortion movement should come out and condemn the act.
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So we shoot the soldier but hold guiltless those who led him to the act?

(loosely rephrased AL)
 
skeptigirl said:
I'd like to see what you are talking about. How about a link?
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You betcha! This is the same DHS report that the Obama administration withdrew after being attacked by the far right for a variety of reasons, including pointing out that extremist groups often targeted veterans for recruitment (as if that was, somehow, in an alternate dimension riddled with goatees) an attack on veterans.

"Paralleling the current national climate, right wing extremists during the1990s exploited a variety of social issues and political themes to increase group visibility and recruit new members. Prominent among these themes were the militia movement’s opposition to gun control efforts, criticism of free trade agreements (particularly those with Mexico), and highlighting perceived government infringement on civil liberties as well as white supremacists’ longstanding exploitation of social issues such as abortion, inter-racial crimes, and same-sex marriage. During the 1990s, these issues contributed to the growth in the number of domestic right wing terrorist and extremist groups and an increase in violent acts targeting government facilities, law enforcement officers, banks, and infrastructure sectors."
 
Shooter had a history of mental illness, according to his brother:

In a statement issued on Monday to The Topeka Capital-Journal, Mr. Roeder’s brother, David, said the suspect had “suffered from mental illness at various times in his life,” the newspaper reported.

“We are shocked, horrified and filled with sadness at the death of Dr. Tiller and the circumstances surrounding it that may have involved Scott Roeder,” the statement read. “We know Scott as a kind and loving son, brother and father who suffered from mental illness at various times in his life.
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Nobody should use this for Political Gain:
Leaders of the anti-abortion movement gathered in front of the Supreme Court Monday morning to denounce the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller, who was gunned down Sunday while attending church in Wichita, Kan.
The pro-life activists also used the platform to blast President Obama's abortion policies and strongly question the beliefs of his Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor.
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Except us, of course...
 
sugarb said:
Um...I personally think you need to calm down, because while you may not realize this (and I understand this is an emotional issue), those kinds of attacks "egg on" the anti-abortion radicals, too. Screaming profanities and hurling insults only makes people hold tighter to positions. You won't change any minds that way.

In fact, things like that could probably encourage a nutjob to pick up a gun and do something stupid.
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Do you resolve all your problems with guns?
 
LostAngeles said:
skeptigirl, you're painting a diverse group with a very large brush. Not every Christian is anti-abortion and there's a ridiculous number of sects. How can you blame such a large group for the actions of a few? By this logic, you're going to have to blame the doctor for his own death as he too was a Christian.

Do you blame all Christians for the actions of the IRA or all Muslims for the actions of al-Qaeda?
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When the color is right the broad brush will do.

Yes I hold all people responsible for their beliefs and the actions that follow from them.
 
tsig said:
When the color is right the broad brush will do.

Yes I hold all people responsible for their beliefs and the actions that follow from them.
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That's not unreasonable, but I do find it unreasonable to hold people responsible for the actions of others just because they hold similar beliefs on some issues. It seems to me that each person is responsible for their own actions, but it's not reasonable to hold anyone responsible for the actions of others with the exception of parents/guardians being held responsible for the actions of the individuals they are charged with overseeing.
 
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